


Better Potentially Green Than Dead. Right?

by seekingsquake



Series: My Family, My Friends [1]
Category: She-Hulk, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Implied Child Abuse, non graphic description of generous blood loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-18 17:42:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3578247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingsquake/pseuds/seekingsquake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce Banner is maybe the wrong person to get a blood transfusion from, and he definitely knows it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Potentially Green Than Dead. Right?

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: How about a short Bruce story about Jen's origin? About how Bruce feels when he feels he has no other option but to give her is blood, and then how he feels when he finds out what happened to her.
> 
> All characters are property of Marvel.  
> Please do not repost or reupload this piece anywhere without consent. If you ask, I'm sure we can work something out :]

This was definitely not supposed to be happening. He wasn’t supposed to get his baby cousin, his only family, back just in time to lose her all over again. 

*

"Jen? Jen, stay with me. Hey, look at me. Jenny. I’m gonna fix this, Jenny. I’ve got you. I got you."

*

So much blood. Her skin was slick with it and his skin was slick with it and there was too much on them and not enough in her. Not enough to keep her alive. Oh God. Oh God.

*

"Dear God, what am I doing? I will. I will find a way to make up for everything I’ve done if you just. Let her live. Please, God, let her live."

*

No time. No blood. He was losing it, but he couldn’t. She needed a doctor and she needed blood but there was no one and nothing except him. And he wasn’t a doctor, and he sure as hell didn’t have good blood, but. He wasn’t going to let her die. Not here. Not like this.

*

"I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Shit. Shit! What did I do? Oh my God, what did I just fucking do? Shit. Jenny. I’m so sorry, Jenny. Please wake up. Please. Wake up."

* * *

She must be dreaming, because when she wakes up Tony Stark is hovering over her. He says, “Hi Miss Walters, it’s good to see you alive and awake. I’m Tony. You’re in Stark Tower. How are you feeling? Angry?”

Angry? Why would she be angry? “…No?”

"Ah, good! You wanna see Bruce? He saved your life, you know, so when you see him please try your best to not be mad."

"Why… would I be mad?"

Before Tony can keep rambling on, a red headed woman enters the room and shuffles him out, then takes a seat beside the cot she’s laying in. “I’m Natasha, and if you’re feeling up to it, I’m going to explain everything to you, okay?”

She nods, shifts, and then looks at Natasha expectantly.

"You and Bruce were out together. Do you remember that? Okay. You were shot. Bruce called us, and he called 911, but he’s had medical experience. You were very seriously hurt and losing a lot of blood, and it was in his experience that you were going to die before help could get to you. So Bruce gave you an emergency blood transfusion, using his blood to save you." Natasha pauses here, her voice stopping and her eyes watching.

Jen’s head is spinning. Bruce… gave her a blood transfusion. But Bruce is… the Hulk. There’s a lot of things she wants to say, a lot of things she wants to ask, but. One thing at a time. “Would I have?”

Natasha’s face twitches, but then smoothes over. “Would you have what?”

"Died. If he hadn’t."

A long pause. Then, “It’s more than likely that you would have died if he hadn’t done what he did. But maybe not. You’re family. He did what he thought was necessary.”

Jen takes a breath and tries not to let the tears well up in her eyes. “Am I. Like him. Now?” They both pretend her voice doesn’t break.

"We don’t know. But we’ll figure it out."

* * *

She finds him where Tony said she would, in what the team calls The Zen Zone. He’s sitting, legs crossed and palms up, eyes closed, in front of an elegant water feature in the corner of the room. She watches him for a moment before slowing crossing the floor and sitting beside him. He takes a deep breath and she imitates him, but it pulls at her stitches so she exhales before he does.

"You should still be resting." He seems calm, but his voice trembles the way it used to when they were kids and he came over after school with a black eye and chipped tooth, still smiling and saying it was fine even though she knew that it wasn’t. She knows no one’s beating him up now, knows that if he’s feeling hurt it’s because of what happened to them.

"I’m doing okay. It’s been a week. I’m a little restless." She doesn’t say that she was waiting for him to visit her in Stark Tower’s med bay, doesn’t say that she was waiting for him to visit her in the guest apartment that Tony put her up in on the 82nd floor, doesn’t say that she missed him. Doesn’t say that she’s been so scared. Instead she says, "Have you figured it out?"

Beside her, he crumples. His whole body sags and he’s bent so his forehead is pressed into the floor above where his ankles are crossed in front of him. He’s shaking and shuddering, and he’s making these choked off little noises like he used to when he was in grad school and fighting with Betty and so scared she’d leave him. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers, and it’s raspy and ruined. 

Her hands curl into fists because she doesn’t know if she wants to hug him or hit him. But she’s not going to hit him. She tries for a laugh but it falls flat. “Better potentially green than dead, right?”

"I don’t know." His voice is so angry, like when his therapist made him talk about his dad, but she can hear the sadness in it too. Bruce was always angry, but he was angry because anger was scarier than sadness and anger would make people leave him alone. The anger was always there, but it was there to protect his sadness. She thinks maybe it didn’t do a very good job, because she always heard it, always saw it, is seeing it now. "I don’t know. There were a lot of days I would have rather been dead. Jenny. I’m so sorry, Jenny. It wasn’t my choice to make for you."

"You know there wasn’t enough time for me to decide on my own."

"I don’t know what I’m going to do if you end up with what I’ve got."

"Bruce," finally she reaches for him, because she’s sad and she’s scared and he’s the closest thing to a big brother that she’s ever had, because he’s the only one that ever protected her from anything and she needs to feel him. She places a hand on his shoulder and he’s so tense and pained and angry. She says, "Bruce, you’re forgetting that it’s not about you. It’s about me. And I didn’t get to choose then, but I do get to choose now. And… I think that having what you have is better than being dead."

"Jenny…"

"I’m glad you’re alive, Bruce. And I’m glad I’m alive. And we’ll figure the rest of it out as we go. Besides. Maybe Hulk won’t be so bad once he has somebody he can relate to."

Bruce laughs, and he acts like it was startled out of him. He laughs, and she thinks it might be the first time she’s heard him laugh since he disappeared nine years ago. She had missed him. She’s glad she doesn’t have to anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt by the lovely Werevampiwolf.


End file.
